“I shall never waste my life-span in a vain useless hope, seeking what cannot be, a flawless man among us all﻿ who feed on the fruits of the broad earth. If I find him I will bring you news. However, I praise and love every man who does nothing base from free will. Against necessity not even gods contend.”—Simonides

“I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.”—Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield

“I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”—Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (1813), Chapter XI.

“[Y]ou are welcome to laugh if it so please you. None shall laugh in my company, though it be at my expense, but I will have my share of the merriment. The world is a stage, and life is a farce, and he that laughs most has most profit of the performance. The worst thing is good enough to be laughed at, though it be good for nothing else; and the best thing, though it be good for something else, is good for nothing better.”—Brother Michael in Maid Marian, by Thomas Love Peacock (1822), Chap. XVI.

“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.”—from the Preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre, by Currer Bell (1847).

“[I]f I have succeeded, however imperfectly, in my efforts to amuse, if I have served to while away an idle hour, if I have caught within these pages aught of profit or of pleasure […], I shall be very much surprised.”—from the Preface to How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes, by Will Cuppy (1931).